certain young fellow, Gravenitz by name, who had
come to him from the Mecklenbnrg regions, by way of pushing fortune, and
had got some pageship or the like here in Wurtemberg, recollected that
he had a young Sister at home; pretty and artful, who perhaps might do a
stroke of work here. He sends for the young Sister; very pretty indeed,
and a gentlewoman by birth, though penniless. He borrows clothes for her
(by onerous contract with the haberdashers, it is said, being poor to
a degree); he easily gets her introduced to the Ducal Soirees; bids
her--She knows what to do? Right well she knows what; catches, with her
piquant face, the dull eye of Eberhard Ludwig, kindles Eberhard Ludwig,
and will not for something quench him. Not she at all: How can SHE; your
Serene Highness, ask her not! A virtuous young lady, she, and come of
a stainless Family!--In brief, she hooks, she of all the fishes in the
pool, this lumber of a Duke; enchants him, keeps him hooked; and has
made such a pennyworth of him, for the last twenty years and more, as
Germany cannot match. [Michaelis, iii. 440.] Her brother Gravenitz the
page has become Count Gravenitz the prime minister, or chief of the
Governing Cabal; she Countess Gravenitz and Autocrat of Wurtemberg.
Loaded with wealth, with so-called honors, she and hers, there go they,
flaunting sky-high; none else admitted to more than the liberty of
breathing in silence in this Duchy;--the poor Duke Eberhard Ludwig
making no complaint; obedient as a child to the bidding of his
Gravenitz. He is become a mere enchanted simulacrum of a Duke; bewitched
under worse than Thessalian spells; without faculty of willing, except
as she wills; his People and he the plaything of this Circe or Hecate,
that has got hold of him. So it has lasted for above twenty years.
Gravenitz has become the wonder of Germany; and requires, on these
bad grounds, a slight mention in Human History for some time to
come. Certainly it is by the Gravenitz alone that Eberhard Ludwig is
remembered; and yet, down since Ulrich with the Thumb, [Ulricus POLLEX
(right thumb bigger than left); died A.D. 1265 (Michaelis, iii. 262).]
which of those serene abstruse Beutelsbachers, always an abstruse
obstinate set, has so fixed himself in your memory?--

"Most persons in Wurtemberg, for quiet's sake, have complied with the
Gravenitz; though not without protest, and sometimes spoken protest.
Thus the Right Reverend Osiander (let us name Osiander, He